Ruth Snapper the Frog

Billions and Billions

It was announced recently that the 6 billionth person was born into
the world. The numbers of people born within this past century, are staggering.
There have been more people born during this century than any previous one.
How much suffering would there be if the Great Depression of the 1930's happened
in today's world with so many people vulnerable to famine and starvation? Would
the governments be able to provide for all of these people? It is disturbing
to note that the earth has such a large population. How many people is too many
people? If we look at the animal kingdom, species prey on other species, and
populations remain fairly the same unless man has tipped the balance one way
or another through industrialization or hunting. Man's presence in the environment
seems to have no fail safe device for the overpopulation of people, however.
Will we keep breeding and breeding until the capacity of the earth is full?
Will there will be enough water and food ? Conditions may become much worse
than during the the Great Depression. People need to stop having too many children.
But how can we deprive someone of their right to reproduce?

Natural occurrences such as drought, hurricanes, earthquakes,
and volcanoes take a large number of lives. Yet mankind is getting
better and better at predicting these events and saving many lives.
There are earthquake proof buildings, shelters from hurricanes and Doppler radar
to predict floods, tornadoes and hosts of other conditions. Sickness and disease
used to be another way Mother Nature kept populations in balance.
In today's modern world, we have vaccines, hurricanes and Doppler radar to predict
floods, tornadoes and hosts of other conditions. Sickness and disease
used to be another way Mother Nature kept populations in balance.
In today's modern world, we have vaccines and drugs. People today live nearly twice as long as they
did in the beginning of the century. Mankind and its pursuit
of progress has surpassed Mother Nature as controller of the
planet's destiny. We have an awesome responsibility in today's modern world just to figure out how many people is
too many people and what the capacity of our planet is. Perhaps, subconsciously,
our collective brain has determined a way for our populations to remain just below the critical level.
We may be taking lessons from the whales. It is not known for
sure why many whales beach themselves
in a group effort to commit suicide. One theory is that the whales somehow sense the future environmental conditions in their feeding
area, and sensing that next season will have little or no food
they sacrifice themselves so that other whales have enough to eat.
Similarly, human warfare over the century has resulted in more
and more dead . To take the analogy even further, 5,000 people "beached " themselves
on the shores of Omaha Beach during the Second World War. They made the ultimate
sacrifice for their country, and given the impossible odds, one wonders how
any leader could send men into battle knowing for certain that so many would
die. The numbers of dead from warfare increase with every new war. Like Mother
Nature, we have become very efficient at killing. To ask anyone if they want
war, the answer is always a resounding "NO!", and yet we keep killing each other,
finding more ways of killing more people through nuclear arms and biological
weapons. We must subconsciously suspect that war may be the only means we have
left to control our population explosion in the face of better living conditions
and longer lives for each of us. Perhaps we should be striving to value the
individual life. We should find meaning in our life other than the prerequisite
"having kids" without any thought to our own existence. Far too many people
have children because they feel that is what life is all about . The child somehow
brings a purpose into their life. To not have children is an aberration, something
to be avoided.Like the beached whale, a sacrifice has to be made to improve
the quality of life for everyone. People should have children later in lifewhen
they are better able to provide for them and there are sufficient resources
to nourish a child . Each child should be treasured and given the absolute best
beginnings that life can offer. To value each life as special , and not look
to have large numbers of children is a recipe that is better for the parents
and the children.

Life has to have value. This value should not be in numbers, as in
the amount of people this world has, but in the quality of each life. Life should
not be sacrificed, as in the case of going to war, but rather in not having
so many children and preparing for downtimes and natural disasters. To value
only a single child we would be less likely to engage in warfare that could
mean the death of that only son or daughter. To value only a single child we
would expend far less of the earthıs resources and preserve the planet for the
next generation. Our sacrifice should not be of the living, as in the case of
the whales , but in those not yet born into this world. It is far more cruel
to bring something out of the peace of oblivion, put it on this planet and then
kill it through famine, or war. The ultimate meaning in life may be to protect
the future.

beet

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving
hysterical naked,

dragging themselves through the cold streets at sunset looking
for home

to see new broadcasts from the large dead box mainline in the living
room

anecdotes and eyeball kicks and stories of hospitals and jails
and wars,

whole intellects destroyed, night after night

worshiping the God of the airwaves

a cross dressing fag uncle of yours and

mine

Thursday night everyone attends the sermon , a church of the ill
informed

no longer a slave to the news from the mouths of babes

a news reformed through

sight and vision of a

Nixon sweaty brow loosing to the finely chiseled features of a

Kennedy world in the making

War as Transformation

Many people look for reason in warfare. The reasons humans decide
to kill each other are varied. Many wars start over land, difference of religion
and culture, or economic stress. While there have been many wars over the
years that man has inhabited this planet, World War I sticks out because of
one incident that took place during the war.

On December 25th, 1916 the Waring factions took essentially a "Christmas
break" from their fighting, and went into enemy territory. They shared food
and drink, and exchanged pictures of loved ones. They laughed and sang and
tried to cross language barriers that the day before seemed insurmountable.
The following day, they returned to their trenches, reinstated the boundaries
of the war and began to fight anew. Even to this day, war is sometimes suspended
for religious reasons, and no one finds this absurd or shocking. Recently,
many Serbians were mad at President Clinton because he did not suspend bombing
of Croatia during a holiday. As if war has a scheduled time and place. World
War 1 was significant to this century because it was a war that involved peoples
from practically every continent for the first time in history. It is ironic
to think that the destructive force of war was something that , in a sense,
brought many peoples of the world together for a common cause whether it was
the Allied cause, or the German or Russian cause.

Looking at this war as an example of most wars, the causes of warfare
stem from some sort of disagreement. Many of these disagreements derive from
human insecurities about change. Fear of change drives people to hold tighter
to their traditions and customs. When change is slow and progressive people
may mutter under their breath, disapprovingly; there may be pockets of resistance,
but the collective mind of people has little resistance, because the changes
are subtle. When there are large underpinnings of change, as was the case
in Russia during the revolution, people become frightened. They worried about
how their lives would change. Will they have food? Will they be able to practice
their customs and religious beliefs? This fear was ripe for a leader, such
as Lenin to come in and play on the sorrows of the old regime and drive the
people to revolt.

In Germany, nationalism spurred on the war. People were buying into
a fear of change, that the new world would have no place for Germany if it
did not assert itself and crush the opposition. In a stagnant , stubborn society,
fear of change is the beginning of the process that leads to war. People will
not listen to reason collectively. Every individual has their own ideas about
change and most are resistant due to prejudices of one kind or another. Listening
to reason does not work for these people and their leaders. War begins because
of this unwillingness to accept change. When war ends, change has been effected
anyway in spite of what these people originally wanted. Sometimes the status
quo prevails, but the period after a war always involves some sort of reinvention
of the culture. If one looks back at ancient times, Roman influence due to
war was as great in the culture of the conquered peoples as the conquered
peoples influence to Roman culture. War brought change to all.

Killing means death. Death means changes, and new beginnings. War
is the mechanism for change in human culture. Death provides a cleansing of
the old. Many adult males die in war. With their deaths, ideals and traditions
die, leaving families vulnerable to change. New ideas are forced upon people
through their dependency on the conquering government after the war. Once
beaten, the people can be molded into citizens of the new regime. During wartime,
no new ideas are initiated. There is no art. No music. Writing and free thinking
is limited or given over to the prevailing propaganda; another instrument
of change. The loss of family and friends breaks the spirit of the collective,
leaving them open to the new changes. Suddenly, a desire to just have the
war end surfaces. People who would not accept the changes are suddenly able
to. The South never would accept freed slaves until their back was broken
by the North during the Civil War. In World War 1 , people were just plain
tired of the war. Fatigue allowed new countries to be formed and borders to
be changed. These changes would have never been tolerated before the spirit
of the old collective was broken and laid open for new ideas.

War as a process of change works successfully. That is why people
are so dependent on it. It is much easier to break someone's spirit with brute
force than to use intellect and reason. War as a transformation process will
continue unless people see that the same evolutionary processes of change
in society can be implemented through negotiation. But these types of processes
are slow and involve a willingness to be open to change. People have to get
the idea in their head that change is inevitable, it is what life is based
on. The status quo can not remain forever. It is only through this realization
and openness to new ideas that war as a machine of progress can ever be stopped
. Skilled leaders need to motivate people to negotiation, and to acting without
aggression. To lose the 'us against them mentality' should be the ultimate
goal of all societies and peoples. Every day should be Christmas.